Thread: File

Well, a text-file is a binary file too - since everything stored in a computer is binary.

It is non-trivial to determine if something is text or not, but reading the file (in binary form) and scanning to see if all (or nearly all) of it's content is "printable characters", newline or carriage return would be one way.

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Mats

Could you not just search for 0 bytes?

Originally Posted by zacs7

Could you not just search for 0 bytes?

Is there a guarantee that zero bytes are always present in a binary? I don't think so. In code, yes. In the file produced by this:

Code:

int main()
{
   unsigned char a[255];
   FILE *f;
   for(i = 0; i < 255; i++)
      a[i] = i+1;
   f = fopen("blah.bin", "w");
   fwrite(a, sizeof(a), 1, f);
   fclose(f);
}

It wouldn't print very well tho'.

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Mats

>How we can find the given file is Binary or Text File with the help of c program?????
Binary or text are C's way of knowing how to properly buffer characters for you. That's it. The data coming in is binary, and the data going out is binary. In the middle you might get textual conversions like CRLF to LF (and vice versa). Since the difference is only relevant within your program, and your program opened the file, you already know what the open mode was.